We consume, as a Nation, that’s what we do.  Consumerism hit an all-time high with the rise of the Celtic Tiger in Ireland.  We shopped, we bought, we consumed, we filled ourselves.  We became “EMPTY ME’s” that needed to be filled.  The more we consumed, the more we felt fulfilled.

But our time with the Tiger has left a legacy, because it doesn’t stop with shopping.  Once we think of ourselves as “EMPTY ME’s”, we try and consume EVERYTHING to feel fulfilled – including people…

Our friends, our partners, our spouses become fuel to fill the “EMPTY ME”.  We use them to feel happy, to feel full again.  But if they fail to meet OUR needs the way WE want them to, then like last year’s fashion, they are cast aside or dropped into a handy charity shop.

In our bid to USE people and cast them aside, we LOSE ourselves.  We become isolated, lonely people who are left with only the empty wrapping of past relationships. The Celtic Tiger tells us to consume people and we end up losing ourselves and the people around us.

The problem is, the Celtic Tiger got it wrong.  We are not “EMPTY ME’s” that need to be filled.  God has designed us not ‘consume’ people, but to love people.  He has designed us for relationships where there is give and take.  Relationships that seek to serve the other person, not use them.

The thing is, God didn’t just design us for relationship with other people, he also designed us to relate to Him.  That’s why even our best attempt at relationships never quite satisfies… without God we are never the way we should be.  We aren’t ‘EMPTY ME’s” but we are ‘BROKEN ME’s”.  We are broken by our own rejection of God.  It is only when we come to Christ that we begin to get ‘fixed’, that we begin to know the God who made us.  It is only as we follow Christ’s example that we learn what it is to truly give ourselves to LOVE and SERVE another person.